Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FOUR.
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION.
XIII. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AFTER 1850.

The most important Church building, in central Dover,
after 1850 was the erection of St. James's new Parish
Church. That parish had long been short of Church accom-
modation, owing to the closing of the Castle Church in 1690,
after which St. James's Old Church had to provide accom-
modation for the Castle population. When the question of
re-building was raised in i860 it was found to be impossible
to erect a sufficiently large Church on the old site at the
top of St. James's Street; therefore a .spot was selected
further north where a new suburb was extending along the
Maison Dieu Road. The building was designed by Mr.
Talbot Bury in the Early English Decorated style ; the cost
was ;^ 1 2,000; and accommodation was provided for 1,400
persons. A graceful tower, surmounted by a spire, gives
the west front a picturesque appearance. When this new
building was opened in 1862 it became the Parish Church.
The old edifice, at the top of St. James's Street, was used
for a time as a French Protestant Church; but in 1869 it
was restored and used, under the control of the Rector, as
a Chapel-of-ease.

The old Church of St. Mary-in-thc-Castle was restored
at the expense of the War Department by Sir Gilbert Scott,
and re-opened in i<S62, after being in ruins for 172 years,
and the principal Military Chaplain ofliciates there for the
Military population in and around the Castle.

On the W^estern Heights, just within the ramparts,
overlooking the North Military Road, a Garrison Church,
which is a spacious and substantial Gothic structure, was
erected in 1859. It is in the vicinity of the foundations of
an ancient round church, said to have belonged to the
Knights Templars, but it was so small that it seems more
likely to have been a shrine on the wayside in the Middle
Ages when the main road from Folkestone passed over these
Heights into Dover.

The first effort of the Church of England to provide for
public worship in Tower Hamlets was the building of a small
Mission Room in Black Horse Lane, since called 'Tower



210 ANNALS OF DOVER.

Hamlets Road ; and further accommodation was provided
in 1873 by the erection of an iron church beyond the
railway in Tower Hamlets Street. The Rev. Walker Flower
first ministered there, and was succeeded by the Rev. E. F.
Churton, who continued the services until St. Bartholomew's,
in the Early English style, was built at a cost of ;^7,5oo,
a short distance from where the original Tower Hamlets
Mission Room stood. The Iron Church up in Tower
Hamlets was disposed of, but a brick building, called St.
Michael's Mission Church, was built near the same spot.
Later, that Mission Church was used as a Girls' Elementary
School, and a new Mission Hall was, in 1905, erected in
Curzon Road, Tower Hamlets, at a cost of ^1,200.

Buckland Parish Church was further enlarged in 1880.
At that time there was a debt of ^80 left from the enlarge-
ment of J 85 1, and an attempt was made in 1876 to raise
that amount by a Church Rate, Init that being overruled by
an appeal to the House of Eords. it was raised l)y voluntary
contributiuns. .so the way was cleare<l for U\o enlargement
of 1880. The nave was extended by adding three more
arches, 250 additional sittings were provided, at a cost of
;^2,ooo. The great expense was partly due to the fact that
the historic yew tree at the west end had to be remove 1
sixty feet westward to make room for the extension. The
tree, which is supposed to be a thousand years old, has
maintained its vitality in the new situation, and is now more
than ever an object of curiosity.

The small Parish Church of Charllcjn, which from the
Thirteenth Century had stood beside the mill-pond, a
picturesque fabric, was taken down in 1893, and a large
new Church of Early English '^esign was built a short distance
eastward. The cost of the ne.v building was about ^12,000,
the prime movers in the buildi ig movement being Mr. George
Fielding, solicitor, and the Rev. Canon Walker Flower, both
of whom have passed to their res*^. The English Church
Union contributed ;^ 1,200, the inuntion being to meet the
cost of the Chancel as a memr rial of the saciifice of position
and personal liberty made, 1 ir Church [irinciples, by the
then Rector, the Rev. S. F. <ireen, M.A., when he was in
the Diocese of Manchester.

A new Church, in Buckland parish, near the boundary
of Charlton, dedicated to St. Barnabas, was built on a part
of Barton Me.idow in the year 11,01. the memorial stone



THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 211

being laid by the late Mr. Robert Hesketh Jones, J. P. The
plans, in decorated Gothic, were prepared by Mr. B. Ingelow,
and the cost was ;£6,it^o as far as the permanent work was
carried out, which included the chancel and portions of the
nave and aisles. A corrugated iron annexe provides the
further accommodation intended to be supplied eventually by
the completion of the nave and aisles. The first Vicar was
the Rev. Cyril Golding-Bird, who, in 1907, was appointed
Dean of the Falkland Islands, and in 1914 became the first
Bishop of Kalgoorlie, West Australia.

In the suburb of Maxton, at the entrance to Elms Vale,
a modern Church has been built, dedicated to St. Martin,
the patron saint of Dover, in an ecclesiastical district formed
partly out of Christ Church district and partly out of the
old parish of Hougham, of which the first Vicar was the Rev.
Arthur Jephson.

The population of Dover having increased in the period
between 1850 and 19 10 from 20,000 to 45,000, the above
mentioned additional Church accommodation had become
absolutely necessary.



212 ANNALS OF DOVER.